Bob Spiers, who has died of cancer aged 63, was one of Britain's foremost directors of television comedy. His credits are a roll-call of popular sitcoms from the 1970s onwards, from Dad's Army and Fawlty Towers to Absolutely Fabulous. He was twice a Bafta winner.

Born in Glasgow, Spiers was a national junior tennis champion before moving to London at the age of 13. He developed a love of acting at Southgate college, north London, and later became involved in youth theatre, touring Britain with various drama groups.

He joined the BBC as a junior in 1967. One of his favourite moments occurred early on while working as a broadcast assistant on Top of the Pops. He received a call from John Lennon, one of his heroes, demanding that Yoko Ono should be granted a spot on the programme to plug her new single. The request was turned down.

Spiers's creative talent was soon recognised and he was fast-tracked through vision-mixing, floor management and production assistant until he had learned all the skills required to be a director. He began with Seaside Special and comic dramas from David Croft and Jimmy Perry such as It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Dad's Army. He was then chosen to direct the second series of Fawlty Towers in 1979. Among the episodes under his charge were Waldorf Salad, Basil the Rat and Kipper and the Corpse.

The scripts, by John Cleese and Connie Booth, made great technical demands of the director, including continuous action sequences and inventive camera angles. Colleagues recall how draining the schedule was, yet Spiers had by then developed a reputation for acute concentration and the ability to make scenes appear more visually interesting. He won his first Bafta for Fawlty Towers.

He continued to produce series such as Are You Being Served? and The Goodies, whose zany brand of humour chimed with his own. He turned freelance in 1982, feeling that the BBC did not grant the same kudos to sitcom directors as those working on dramas or in film. The growth of the independent sector also offered creative opportunities, with less accompanying bureaucracy.

His friend Peter Richardson, the actor, writer and director, hired him to direct The Comic Strip Presents ... for Channel 4. By then, his marriage to Annie, a leading make-up artist, had failed. While on the set of one of the Comic Strip episodes, A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques, a spaghetti-western spoof, he met Sophie Richardson, Peter's sister, who would become his second wife.

From 1989 to 1993, Spiers directed the entire run of Press Gang, ITV's children's series about a youth newspaper, which was written by Steven Moffat. His collaboration with Moffat continued with Joking Apart.

At the same time he was lured back to the BBC to direct nine episodes of French and Saunders. By then, his reputation was that of a perfectionist. Crews loved working with him because he challenged them creatively, and brought out the best in them. French and Saunders led, via Murder Most Horrid, Bottom and A Bit of Fry and Laurie, to the Absolutely Fabulous series, for which Spiers directed every episode from 1992 to 2001. Jennifer Saunders regarded him as the best sitcom director, and one who never put style over content. She recalled how he would remove a tile from a set just to offer up another camera angle, and that his mental ability to determine camera sequences was so acute that he was once able to edit out a whole character from a scene without having to re-shoot. He won his second Bafta for Absolutely Fabulous in 1992.

Spiers's reputation spread to Hollywood, and in 1997 he was hired by Disney to direct the film That Darn Cat, starring Christina Ricci. He and Sophie took up residence in Nichols Canyon, California, where they counted Julia Roberts and Stevie Wonder among their neighbours.

His next film, in the same year, was Spice World: The Movie. He had not heard of the Spice Girls but Saunders advised him to take it on. When he was first introduced to them at a Los Angeles bar, Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice, told him that she wanted the group to become "as famous as washing powder". The film was panned, though Spiers received praise for the direction.

He made one more movie, Kevin of the North (2001), a comedy shot in Canada starring Skeet Ulrich, Leslie Nielsen and Rik Mayall.

Spiers's subsequent career was blighted, first by a drink problem and then by cancer. When told that he required a second round of chemotherapy, he decided to endure it in more pleasant surroundings, in the sun and by the sea. He knew a friendly hotel in Acapulco, Mexico, once owned by John Wayne, where he went to convalesce. But after six months with no recovery, he returned home to Devon.

Spiers was a private man who had few interests outside work, save for a love of Arsenal Football Club.

Annie died in 2007. He is survived by Sophie, his stepdaughter, Coral, and his daughter, Sienna.

• Bob Spiers, television and film director, born 27 September 1945; died 8 December 2008